


Doorbells

by Magpied_Spider



Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Gen, Pseudonyms, Superhero names, What kind of classes do they have at this school anyway?, mentions of A Song of Ice and Fire, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 06:02:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5237066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magpied_Spider/pseuds/Magpied_Spider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“<i>Come on, Stronghold, see if you can guess</i>,” Will mumbled to himself, staring at the line of names on the doorbells. Warren had given him the apartment’s address, but not the number he was in, not even the floor.<br/>He’d said it wasn’t under his real name, but it was a reasonably obvious pseudonym. Will frowned, trying to think of what kind of fake name someone like Warren would use, and kicked at the snow gathered around the mailboxes.</p><p>AKA: Secret Identities, and coming up with fake names.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doorbells

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted Warren to have a weirdly specific fake name for his apartment, in a different fic, and then it snowballed.  
> That fic is still non-existent, however this one is good to go.  
> Post-movie, Christmas holidays.

“ _Come on, Stronghold, see if you can guess,_ ” Will mumbled to himself, staring at the line of names on the doorbells. Warren had given him the apartment’s address, but not the number he was in, or even the floor.

He’d said it wasn’t under his real name, but it would be a reasonably obvious pseudonym. Will frowned, trying to think of what kind of fake name someone like Warren would use, or better yet, what someone like Warren Peace would consider "reasonably obvious", and kicked at the snow gathered around the mailboxes as he considered the listings.

D. Burns was printed on a fifth floor apartment, and that seemed reasonably fire-related; Will tried the bell.

There was a crackle, and then a distinctly feminine - and old-sounding - voice came through the intercom. “Is this the package I ordered?”

“Uh…” Will floundered for a moment. “Sorry, pressed the wrong button.”

“Alright, then.”

Well, obvious-sounding surnames were off the table.

Some of the names were just surnames, some - like Ms Burns - had initials, and some had full names.

Will read through them again. If I were Warren, what would I think would be an obvious-yet-appropriate name to put on a lease if it wasn’t my real name?

A name caught his eye, not because of the name itself, but because the paper was lightly singed. Will grinned to himself - a clue to those in the know?

He pressed the button for Nikolas Schmidt.

“Who’s that?” The voice was sharp, accented, and definitely not Warren’s.

“Sorry,” Will improvised, “I’m holding a package and I’m trying to press with my elbow. Wrong button.”

There was a sound of annoyance, and the crackle of static cut off.

Third time’s the charm, Will thought, looking back at the listing.

Maybe Warren was one of the initials - an A. Karenina, or L. Tolstoy - but there was no one under those names.

Although, there was a Michael Katkov, which sounded… kind of Russian?

Will tried the bell, vowing that if he ended up with the wrong apartment this time, he’d just text Warren to open the windows, and fly up rather than mess around any more.

A crackle, then the tones of his friend: “That you, Stronghold?”

Will grinned despite himself. “Yup! I come bearing Italian and homework.”

“Third floor, I’ll meet you at the elevator.”

There was the tell-tale clunk of the door unlocking, and Will pushed it open with his free hand.

Third floor.

True to his word, Warren was waiting.

“Did you try every apartment until you got to me, or did you actually figure out “Michael Katkov”? Because if you did, then I definitely underestimated you.”

He took one of Will’s plastic bags with food, and started walking towards his door.

Or, presumably his door. Will hadn’t been here before.

“Third try.” Will admitted. “Katkov. That’s, uhm... Russian?”

Warren grinned, not quite laughing, but close to it, as he pushed the door open and let Will in. “It’s… it’s a joke.”

“Joke?”

“It’s… Ok.” The door swung shut. “My name’s Warren Peace.”

Will blinked. “Yeah, I know that. Where should I-”

Warren gestured towards the table, and Will set the bag of food down.

“Just chuck it there. Ok, so. War and Peace was originally published in the _Russkiy Vestnik_ \- the Russian Messenger.” He looked at Will, who nodded for him to continue. “The editor-in-chief of the Russian Messenger at the time was named Mikhail Katkov. He didn’t have much to say about War and Peace, but he did clash with Tolstoy over Anna Karenina quite a bit. It’s a long route to a joke that’s… not hugely funny, I guess.” He gestured towards the couches, sitting down on one himself.

Will thought for a moment as he joined his friend. “Well, I mean, I guess you’re putting more thought into your secret identity than most people put into their actual hero names.” He paused. “And the reason you’ve got a secret name on the lease is…?”

Warren stared at him. “What, I’m going to put my real name, the fairly-well-known son of Baron Battle, on a lease? That's something people would find out with literally one google search.”

“Yeah, ok. Fair.”

There was a moment of silent understanding between them.

And then: “Hey, do you think I should make a different civilian name?”

Warren snorted. “Not unless Josie and Steve… Stronghold… manage to blow their secret identities…” He made a face. “Yeah, more surveillance every day. Maybe you should."

"Right." Will nodded, then frowned. "Where do you start?"

“Right. Well… Ok. We’re looking for a joke that’s not… not obvious, but if you’re in the know, you’d find it pretty great. Have you got a favourite book series, or…”

Will squirmed. “I mean, I read books,” he said, slightly defensively, “But… I’m more of a… comics and cartoons kind of guy.”

Warren made a face. “Comics and cartoons tend to have a bigger audience than most books. I mean, War and Peace is a pretty well-known book, but I probably could have gone with Nikolai Levin and still been pretty safe from detection. Will’s a pretty common name, though,” he added. “We don’t have to change that if you don’t want to. And it’s probably easier to answer to the same name you’ve been answering to all your life.”

“Is that so, Mike?”

Will received a grimace in reply. “No one calls Michael Katkov Mike. That’s… no.” He looked at Will for a moment. “Stronghold. You could go with Stark, that’s German for strong. Or,” Warren grinned, suddenly, “Will Snow.”

Will stared at him. “Where’d you get Snow from Stark?”

“It’s a… book series. I was just rereading it, the fourth one’s just come out. There’s a family, the Starks, and where they live, if you’re a bastard and have no father, your surname is just automatically considered “Snow”. Hm.” He gave a thought. “If I hadn’t already gone the pun route, I could have been… Cooper Sand.”

Will laughed. “You don’t really look like a Cooper.”

Warren threw his hands up in a gesture of does-it-matter?-I-don’t-care, and flopped back against the couch.

“Well, that’s more appropriate for me than you, in the whole ‘not-really-one-of-the-family’ way. I mean, there's Snow, Hill, Sand... Flowers. Well, there's your girlfriend's surname sorted, if she wanted to be really obvious.”

Will coughed. "She's, uh. Just my friend. Again."

"Oh. Right."

The silence dragged on for a good ten, twenty seconds, as they both considered how to avoid the subject.

"We could just come back to the whole names thing later."

Warren nodded. "Hmm. Let the subconscious deal with it while we eat pizza."

"You'll need to heat it up, it was snowing out."

~

They munched on reheated pizza - "I come with my own portable wood-fire oven," Warren had joked, before piling the slices onto a plate and zapping them in the microwave - and discussed what they were going to do with the remainder of the school year.

"You'd think that Christmas holidays would mean the teachers wouldn't give you homework, would you?" Will asked, rubbing his forehead. "But nope! Literature assignment, not one, not two, but _three_ essays to write for Modern Super History, and I'm pretty sure the Mad Science Project's _actually_ meant to kill us."

Warren snorted. "Tell me about it. I did mine on the whole em-cat thing, and let me tell you: I'm never going to look at another pair of scales again."

Will raised his eyebrows. "Em-cat?"

"The Q equals MC-delta-T energy equation. At least, that's what I _started_ off doing, but then I ended up having to go through the whole E equals MC-squared, because it turns out that my superpower is not just pyrokenesis, but _nuclear_ pyrokenesis. People have been trying to work out how to mimic this sort of reaction for _decades_ , and I just... do it. Not that it's any use to anyone else, but still."

Will stared at him. "What on Earth made you want to do that?"

Warren shrugged. "Well, you get bonus points for "personal engagement"," he included the finger-quotes as he said the words, "And doing it on your own powers is about as personal as you can get. What are you thinking of doing yours on?"

Will made a panicked face, and began with an "Uh..." that said that he _hadn't ~~~~_been thinking about it at all.

"You could do it on Bone density," Warren offered. "Someone usually does that every few years, looks at different powers in relation to bone density. I think Melissa did her one on that."

Will looked dubious. "Could she give it to me?"

"She'd probably sell it, if you asked. But Medulla actually reads them, so you can't just copy word-for-word."

"Ugh." Will flopped his head back, staring at the ceiling.

"Hey, at least Super Lit's mainly, what... cartoons and comic books?"

Will looked at him, unimpressed. "Do you know how hard it is to _quote_ pictures?"

~

"It's one of the exercises they make you do when you're a senior - one of them told me about it, so I just sort of... started coming up with secret identity names. Who says you don't learn anything at school?"

"Tell me about it." Will paused. "Actually, do tell me about it. I've been thinking about it all evening and I can't come up with anything decent-sounding for "Will Stronghold" that isn't only one step removed but still makes sense."

"Well, Michael Katkov's only two or three steps. Let's see. Will.” Warren mulled the name the name around in his mouth. “You’ve never been a “Bill”, have you?”

Will snorted. “Ah yes. Bill Stronghold. Strikes fear into your heart, doesn’t it?”

They both paused, a moment of silence for the terrible name. "Let's not go there," Warren finally said. "You speak any languages?"

"I-" Will was about to make a joke, before remembering that Warren actually _did_ speak at least one non-English language fluently. "I mean, I've got grade school-level Spanish."

Warren shrugged. "Well, it was worth a shot. Start with a surname, that's easier. You want something easy to remember, for you personally, but also so that people in the know, as it were, could recognise it."

"What, like _Mike Katkov_?"

"Ugh." Warren threw a one of the pieces of pineapple that had been piling up on his plate at Will's head. "If you call me that again, I'll roast you."

"Alive?"

"Definitely not," Warren replied, only humour in his tone. "If you were alive, then you'd have the opportunity for that terrible name to come of of your mouth again."

Will snorted, and returned to his slice. "I could just go Will Steveson or something."

"Steveson," Warren said critically, "Sounds very fake. You could go with Stevens, though. That would work."

"Will Stevens." Will tried it. "Alright, then, I definitely won't fail the Pseudonym class."

**Author's Note:**

> (Will's teacher gave him a B- for "Will Stevenson", with the comments that it was "conspicuously drab" and "needed more flair". Given that she marked Zach's name of "Dazz L. Bright" with the a B+, the general consensus of the cohort was that she'd just peppered a dartboard with grades and based the marks from that, rather than actual merit.)
> 
> A Feast for Crows came out in November 2005. Sky High was released in 2005, which obviously means it's set in the same year. Warren’s going to give the book to himself for Christmas.


End file.
